Abstract:

Innovations affect our actions by improving or facilitating processes for both the business world and the daily life. While the biggest recent technical innovations include smartphones, 3D-printing and cloud computing, also non-existent innovations – innovations that are announced but not yet released - are under discussion and in the process of development. Autonomous vehicles for example that can operate in every possible circumstance are not yet developed, prototypes with limitations are however already being tested and marketed. This development phase is characterized by mass media communication that allows for the process of opinion formation on the customer side. The continuous information stream with stressing the advantages of such innovations shall consequently lead to acceptance on the customer side.

Technology acceptance models and theories in the literature aim at explaining the variables in the process of acceptance forming on the customer side for existing innovations (e.g. information systems). These models and theories cannot be transferred to non-existent innovations to the full extent, but are applicable with minor adjustments according to the carried out comparative analysis and the combination with models from the field of marketing.

The results of this paper can be used by researchers aiming at developing modified acceptance models as well as companies trying to evaluate acceptance of innovations in the development process.